At the First Battle of Bull Run Law was in Brig. Gen. Barnard E. Bee's brigade. The colonel of his regiment was killed in action and Law was wounded in the arm. Law recovered, although his left arm was stiff and almost useless, and returned to the regiment

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Law's Brigade

The brigade was commanded at the Battle of Gettysburg by Brigadier General Evander Law, a South Carolina history professor who moved to Alabama in 1860 to start a military school.

Law's Brigade arrived on the battlefield on July 2nd after a long, hot march and were assigned the right flank of Longstreet's attack. When General Hood was wounded early in the assault Law took over the division as senior brigade commander, but the transition went poorly. It took time for Law to find out Hood was wounded, he did not notify his senior colonel to take over his brigade, and neither brigade nor division received firm direction.

The result was that the Confederate assault lacked coordination and there was no support to consolidate and exploit the initially succesful assults that overran Devil's Den and almost took Little Round Top. Law's Brigade had seized an advanced position but failed to deliver the knockout blow that Lee hoped for.

Lee had wished to include Hood's Division in the great attack on July 3rd but it was decided that it had been too badly battered on the 2nd. Law's Brigade, now under Colonel James L. Sheffield of the 48th Alabama Infantry, easily defended its position against encroaching Union skirmishers and a spectacular but hopeless cavalry charge led by Union Brigadier General Elon Farnsworth.

At the First Battle of Bull Run Law was in Brig. Gen. Barnard E. Bee's brigade. The colonel of his regiment was killed in action and Law was wounded in the arm. Law recovered, although his left arm was stiff and almost useless, and returned to the regiment